i dyed my hair for you
by the crabby lamb
Summary: Maybe it was the fact that he was sitting there asking those questions, but she wasn't holding back this time.  AU


_**don't own.  
**It's snowing and boredom struck and led to this OOC AU vampire!plotbunny.  
hope its not too horrible. _

* * *

It was snowing outside. Hard. A veritable blizzard and Jiraiya's only way home had decided to flat die, leaving him to spend the night at the hospital, in the office with his ex-fuckbuddy/ex-friend/co-worker. Who now spends the majority of her time finding new and interesting ways to make his work life a living hell.

Lucky him.

The office was probably the tiniest office in the entire hospital. There was barely room for two people to sit in it comfortably and work the computers, which is essentially what the big bosses were trying to tell them – they're low-level orderlies, they're job is to constantly be on the move, not sitting in the office chatting it up with the supervisors. So of course the big wigs made it uncomfortable.

Tiny as the office may be, leave it to Tsunade to find a way to shove her body in the smallest space as far away from him as humanly possible.

Oh sure, he understood why.

Tsunade had liked him. A lot. He had liked her, too. She was a hell of a fuckbuddy, and a no-nonsense friend on top of it. She was fun, but that was it. He harbored no deeper feelings for her, and he was pretty sure she didn't have anything for him beyond the fun, either. At least, not at first.

They had a good thing going with the whole "friends with benefits" angle. Then she had to go mess it up by adding feelings to the matter.

Stupid girl.

"Are you seriously going to ignore me all night?" he finally snapped.

She raised an eyebrow, and then curled back into her (extremely itchy, not to mention uncomfortable) hospital blanket.

He smirked. "You know, if we cuddled we wouldn't be so cold. Shared body heat and all. And I seem to remember we never had a problem with there not being enough room in here before."

A shoe smacked him in the head.

"Bitch! What'd you do that for?"

"I would rather die," she hissed.

Jiraiya glared. That's it. He'd had enough. She'd screamed at him for stupid shit all week long. She'd given him the hardest patients to take care of. She _threw _her _shoe _at him. If he was going to be stuck in the office with her for the rest of the night, then either he was getting some answers or one of them would be dead come the morning.

"What the fuck is your problem?"

She curled out from under the blanket, with a typical Tsunade glare. He'd grown slightly immune.

Slightly.

"You! You are my problem."

He scoffed. "And what the fuck did I ever do to you? Not reciprocate some stupid feeling?"

Maybe it was the fact that they were stuck, and going to be stuck for an unforeseeable amount of time, in that hospital, and in that tiny little room because God forbid security let them have clearance to go anywhere else at night. Maybe it was the fact that he was there, sitting there, _asking _those questions, and he couldn't back out or run away from the answers. Maybe it was the fact that somewhere someone with more authority on the subject than her had said that holding in rage led to ulcers and acne and potential homicide.

Whatever the reason, Tsunade didn't hold back. She whirled on him, drew up as tall as she could get while sitting, and unloaded.

"You complete asshole. You complete arrogant asshole! I . . . I liked you, yeah," she screamed. "Sue me! You were fun! I liked fucking around with you. I'm a human being, I like sex. Show me someone who doesn't, and I'll show you a liar!"

Jiraiya smirked at that. That was practically his motto.

Tsunade glared.

"But you. . . you bought me Chinese. You sat with me until someone could pick me up the night my car broke down. You _held me _all night and let me _cry _on your shoulder the night Dan, the love of my life, died in that stupid accident. You made me watch stupid old samurai movies with you, and you kissed me."

"I did more than kiss," Jiraiya said with a haughty tone.

"You kissed me. Not an 'i-wanna-fuck-you-senseless-right-now-kiss' either. You kissed me like a drowning man coming up for air, like a man kisses a woman when he wants that kiss to be the last first kiss they ever have."

Jiraiya scoffed at that, but red tinted his cheeks anyway. "You're fucking crazy. I did not."

"Yes you did. I know how a man kisses a woman when he means something more, and you meant something more. You meant something more, and then, then you got scared and fucked the nurse on pediatrics."

Tsunade's eyes welled up with tears. She jerked her head down to look at her hands, hoping to hide them from Jiraiya before he could see, but it didn't work. He could see the teardrops rolling off her chin onto her fingers.

"I dyed my hair for you." She laughed. It was a dark, twisted mockery of a laugh. "I dyed my hair for you, because you said you liked girls with dark hair. I changed for you, because you liked it. And you go, and you kiss me like you did and you got scared and slept with someone else. You got scared of the . . . of the bigger picture. Of what things _could _be."

Tsunade sniffed. "I dyed my hair for you." _I loved you. _

Jiraiya watched her cry. Tsunade was strong, maybe a little overemotional when you touched her hot buttons – and heaven knows she had plenty of those – but she was strong. He'd done plenty to her over the course of their strained "relationship," but never once had she ever cried in front of him, or anyone else at work. She was strong, and now . . . now she was breaking and it was his entire fault.

"You didn't have to dye your hair," he said. Tsunade continued crying silently, never raising her head up.

The truth was simple: Rome wasn't built in a day. Maybe today he felt like the ass he was for making her cry, for putting her through all of this, and he'll take the blame. He'll let her scream and fight. He'll take his licks like a good chastised little boy, but tomorrow he'll probably wake up and think otherwise.

Tomorrow he'll remember she was just as much to blame as him; that she could have said no. Because he's not going to love her anymore tomorrow than he did yesterday.

She was just a friend. . .

"You looked better blonde anyway."

"Asshole."

. . . at least, that's what he'll tell himself.


End file.
